How the Totable Tornado Observatory Worked

I don't remember how I landed the assignment to write about the Totable Tornado Observatory. I do recall that it sank in very quickly, after just a little bit of preliminary research, that I had seen something like an ode to it in the movie "Twister." I thought it was an interesting homage and gave the movie a bit more weight. In fairly short order, though, I came to like the real story of TOTO more.

The haphazard, kitchen-sink-inclusive design of the TOTO that these highly trained meteorologists had to come up with themselves was almost comical. This thing could use a pressure gauge, I could imagine one meteorologist saying. "Well, put one in there," I could hear another replying. And the name, itself an homage to "The Wizard of Oz," really illuminated the blurred line between hobbyist and scientist among the storm chasing community, which I came to respect.

And I also remember coming to the realization that TOTO's creators came to at some point: How are they going to get the observatory precisely in the path of a tornado? This one turned out to be really interesting and fun to write.

"Earliest tornado and waterspout." Tornado and Storm Research Organisation. http://www.torro.org.uk/TORRO/research/whirlextreme.php

"NASA technology putting a new twist on early detection of twisters." Marshall Space Flight Center. April 1997. http://techtran.msfc.nasa.gov/new/tornado.html

"The TOTO home page." National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. http://www.spc.noaa.gov/faq/tornado/toto.htm

"Things that have been deliberately placed in the path of an oncoming tornado (either successfully or not)." Tornado Project. http://www.tornadoproject.com/cellar/curiosity.htm

"What do you do with a tornado once you've chased it down? Look inside it." University Corporation for Atmospheric Research. April 10, 2000. http://www.ucar.edu/communications/highlights/1996/programs.html